We're In Great Shape!

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Hello friends! Hope everyone had a great weekend. We had bee-you-ti-ful weather once again. Ah, September! I love September for a lot of reasons - one of which is today is my 13th wedding anniversary. Husband and I started dating in 1992, married in '97 and here we are 13 years later, still laughing at with each other. *wink*

As you know, the design team has a new challenge every week to help introduce products available at The Beary Scrap. We do this in addition to our twice-monthly Beary Sweet Challenge - open to everyone on the 1st and 15th of every month. Our current BSC is a Vintage theme - check out our posting for all the info and some easy vintage suggestions in case you need 'em to play along. We hope you can join us before the 30th!

Ok, so this week the DT is experimenting with shapes. We challenged each other to make projects that are anything other than the standard square or rectangle.

I've had bird houses on the brain lately, and wanted to make a bird house card... major failure. HOWEVER, I've also been noodling the idea to update a stocking stuffer calendar I made last year for a craft fair. Since I have my 2011 calendars on hand, now is the perfect time to play around with design, right?

This is both very simple and very fun, especially with Echo Park's whimsical Life is Good. I dusted off my Cricut and used 2 cartridges - "Stretch Your Imagination" for the bird house and "Storybook" for the birdie and leaves. A little FYI to the Cricut folks - I cut the regular-sized bird house and it's layers at 5.5" (I have the original Cricut, hence the dust...), but I made my own template to make it a little longer. Both the birdie and branches are cut at 2".

Here's a rear view. This striped paper is a separate layer that allowed me to sandwich the branch ends. Even though the calendar will hang on someone's cubicle wall or refrigerator, I wanted it to look "finished" on the back (and you can see the bow in this photo, too).

I like how this turned out, although I definitely consider it a "prototype" that needs a few tweaks. Here's a link to the original calendar stocking stuffer, in case you're interested. It's one of a bunch of designs sold at the craft show last year.

Card Recipe

• Paper: Echo Park's Life is Good paper pack
• Medium: Glimmer Mist - Pearl on the birdie; Stickles Diamond on the embossed dots; Distress Stickles Walnut on the roof edges and around the hole; Color Box Fluid Chalk in Chestnut Roan for all the edges
• Embellishments: Bazzill Tulle Ribbon to hang; Kaisercraft Pearl in Latte for the eye; calendar and hook from stash
• Tools: Cuttlebug Embossing folders (bird and bird house)

Thanks for visiting!

Cheers,
Susan